Conductance-strain behavior in silver-nanowire composites: network properties of a tunable strain sensor.

Highly flexible and conductive nano-composite materials are promising candidates for stretchable and flexible electronics. We report on the strain-resistance relation of a silver-nanowire photopolymer composite during repetitive stretching. Resistance measurements reveal a gradual change of the hysteretic resistance curves towards a linear and non-hysteretic behavior. Furthermore, a decrease in resistance and an increase in electrical sensitivity to strain over the first five stretching cycles can be observed. Sensitivity gauge factors between 10 and 500 at 23% strain were found depending on the nanowire concentration and stretching cycle. We model the electrical behavior of the investigated silver nanowire composites upon repetitive stretching considering the strain induced changes in the local force distribution within the polymer matrix and the tunnel resistance between the nanowires by using a Monte Carlo method.

Electrical and network properties of flexible silver-nanowire composite electrodes under mechanical strain.

Flexible and conductive silver-nanowire photopolymer composites are fabricated and studied under mechanical strain. The initial resistances of the unstretched flexible composites are between 0.27 Ω mm-1 and 1.2 Ω mm-1 for silver-nanowire concentrations between 120 µg cm-2 and 40 µg cm-2. Stretching of the samples leads to an increased resistance by a factor of between 72 for 120 µg cm-2 and 343 for 40 µg cm-2 at elongations of 23%. In order to correlate network morphology and electrical properties, micrographs are recorded during stretching. The Fiber Image Network Evaluation (FINE) algorithm determines morphological silver-nanowire network properties under stretching. For unstretched and stretched samples, an isotropic nanowire network is found with only small changes in fiber orientation. Monte-Carlo simulations on 2D percolation networks of 1D conductive wires and the corresponding network resistance due to tunneling of electrons at nanowire junctions confirm that the elastic polymer matrix under strain exhibits forces in agreement with Hooke's law. By variation of a critical force distribution the resistance curves are accurately reproduced. This results in a model that is dominated by quantum-mechanical tunneling at nanowire junctions explaining the electrical behavior and the sensitivity of nanowire-composites with different filler concentrations under mechanical strain.

Functional Printing of Conductive Silver-Nanowire Photopolymer Composites.

We investigated the fabrication and functional behaviour of conductive silver-nanowire-polymer composites for prospective use in printing applications. Silver-nanowires with an aspect ratio of up to 1000 were synthesized using the polyol route and embedded in a UV-curable and printable polymer matrix. Sheet resistances in the composites down to 13 Ω/sq at an optical transmission of about 90% were accomplished. The silver-nanowire composite morphology and network structure was investigated by electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, profilometry, ellipsometry as well as surface sensitive X-ray scattering. By implementing different printing applications, we demonstrate that our silver nanowires can be used in different polymer composites. On the one hand, we used a tough composite for a 2D-printed film as top contact on a solar cell. On the other hand, a flexible composite was applied for a 3D-printed flexible capacitor.

Tuning the polarity of charge transport in InSb nanowires via heat treatment.

InSb nanowire (NW) arrays were prepared by pulsed electrodeposition combined with a porous template technique. The resulting polycrystalline material has a stoichiometric composition (In:Sb = 1:1) and a high length-to-diameter ratio. Based on a combination of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis and field-effect measurements, the band gap, the charge carrier polarity, the carrier concentration, the mobility and the effective mass for the InSb NWs was investigated. In this preliminary work, a transition from p-type to n-type charge transport was observed when the InSb NWs were subjected to annealing.

The influence of a Te-depleted surface on the thermoelectric transport properties of Bi2Te3 nanowires.

We report on thermoelectric transport measurements along the basal plane of several individual, single-crystalline Bi2Te3 nanowires (NWs) with different cross-sectional areas, grown by a vapor-liquid-solid method. Lithographically defined microdevices allowed us to determine the Seebeck coefficient S, electrical conductivity σ, and thermal conductivity κ of individual NWs. The NWs studied show near intrinsic transport properties with low electrical conductivities of around σ = (3.2 ± 0.9) × 104 Ω⁻¹ m⁻¹ at room temperature. We observe a transition of the Seebeck coefficient from positive to negative values (S = +133 µVK⁻¹ to S = -87 µVK⁻¹) with increasing surface-to-volume ratio at room temperature, which can be explained by the presence of an approximately 5 nm thick Te-depleted layer at the surface of the NWs. The thermal conductivities of our NWs are in the range of κ = (1.4 ± 0.4) Wm⁻¹ K⁻¹ at room temperature, which is lower than literature values for bulk Bi2Te3. We attribute this suppression in thermal conductivity to enhanced scattering of phonons at the surface of the NWs. Despite their reduced thermal conductivities, the NWs investigated only show a moderate figure of merit between 0.02 and 0.18 due to their near intrinsic transport properties.